Monday, February 20, 2012

Bedtime for Babeau

Paul Babeau and his illegal Mexican lover Jose in happier, more closeted and self-loathing times.

It's hard to see where Paul Babeau expects us to see the separation. While admitting that he's gay, he's also trying to get us to believe that at the same time, there was no truth to the allegations that there was anything going on between him and the man who'd outed him (I guess Republicans still haven't gotten used to the concept of photography anymore than they have video and audiotape) at the risk of deportation.

So, while there's been a tempest of interest in what amounts to a local, pathetic scandal involving another self-loathing Republican gay man coming out only after he'd been outed then threw his lover under the wheels of the bus, it's notable that Fox "News" has hardly mentioned it at all. That's understandable. After essentially making themselves the Clenis Network back in 1998, Fox is loath to even report in a fair and balanced manner on someone who's a frequent contributor as a "border expert". It doesn't even matter that Babeau was, until recently, Mitt Romney's campaign co-chair in Arizona and running for Congress out of Arizona's 4th district.

His political career is as good as dead in the water and, unflagging support from John McCain or not, he'll be lucky if he can get elected dog catcher let alone re-elected as Sheriff let alone elected to Congress.

Of course, the real crime here isn't whether Babeau is gay or not or even whether he was sleeping with a Mexican immigrant. The real crime is him trying to game the system by threatening Jose through his lawyer with deportation if he breathed a word of the truth that would hurt Babeau's political career. It revealed the self-loathing, ruthlessly ambitious side of many Republicans who are Republicans first and human beings second.

It reveals once again the bias of the right wing media that was busy turning Andrew Breitbart into a folk hero over the Anthony Weiner scandal yet strenuously turning a blind eye to one of their contributors and giving us, instead, updates and live feeds on Whitney Houston's funeral. Luckily, this is Idiocracy: The Prequel, the United States, indisputably the stupidest fucking nation ever in all of galactic history.

There will always be a fresh supply of useful idiots, Darwin Award nominees and dead celebrities whose sole reason for being will be to distract and divert us from what's really important. And, as smalltime and tawdry as Babeau's scandal is, one that achieved national relevance only because of his official ties to the Romney campaign, Fox "News" couldn't even rouse themselves to mention it, much less report on it.

Not only that, but there's also the issue of dereliction of duty in the SB 1070 Arizona. He knew the guy was undocumented but used him for sexual gratification, anyway then abused his authority to keep the guy quiet for political expediency.

"It's hard to see where Paul Babeau expects us to see the separation. While admitting that he's gay, he's also trying to get us to believe that at the same time, there was no truth to the allegations that there was anything going on between him and the man who'd outed him (I guess Republicans still haven't gotten used to the concept of photography anymore than they have video and audiotape) at the risk of deportation."

This aspect of the situation uis useful in part for illustrating the malleability of "fact" in the Republican world, and helps explain the lack of reporting accuracy (e.g. - calling a liar a liar if they are in Politics). The Republicans believe that facts are things which they create by the assertion of something as a fact. In their world view, their belief that something is a fact is as good as your scientifically and independently verifiable fact. This is how they can accept "Intelligent Design" as a scientific theory that is just as good as the Theory of Evolution, and how they can continue to embrace Trickle-Down Economics (aka Supply-Side Economics) despite 30+ years of evidence that all it does is further enrich the already wealthy with absolutely no measurable economic benefit to the other 99.9% of the population.

It simply doesn't matter to them how hard and completely you debunk their "facts" because 1) they aren't hearing you, 2) it's just your opinion anyway and who cares what you think, and 3) they genuinely believe that they are creating reality no matter how much the evidence contradicts them.